His Excellency (Rougon-Macquart) [Paperback]

Émile Zola (Author), Andrew Moore (Editor), Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2006

His Excellency (French: Son Excellence Eugene Rougon) - From Zola's Rougon-Macquart Series. "Son Excellence Eugene Rougon is the one existing French novel which gives the reader a fair general idea of what occurred in political spheres at an important period of the Empire. It is a book for foreigners and particularly Englishmen to read with profit, for there are yet many among them who cherish the delusion that Napoléon III. was not only a good and true friend of England, but also a wise and beneficent ruler of France; and this, although his reign began with bloodshed and trickery, was prolonged by means of innume-rable subterfuges, and ended in woe, horror, and disgrace... There is, of course, some fiction in the book; but, again and again, page after page, I have found a simple record of fact, just deftly adapted to suit the requirements of the narrative. The history of the Second Empire is probably as familiar to me as it is to M. Zola himself-for, like him, I grew to manhood in its midst, with better opportunities, too, than he had of observing certain of its distinguishing features - and thus I have been able to identify innumerable incidents and allusions, and trace to their very source some of the most curious passages in the book. And it is for this reason, and by virtue of my own knowledge and experience, that I claim for His Excellency the merit of reflecting things as they really were in the earlier years of the Imperial régime." (Ernest Alfred Vizetelly)

Product Details

• Paperback: 364 pages
• Publisher: Mondial (September 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595690557
• ISBN-13: 978-1595690555
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The complete guide to political intrigue, September 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: His Excellency (Hardcover)

This book succeeds magnificently as a meticulous blow-by-blow account of a lowly provincial lawyer's rise to the highest level of political power, the people behind him, his fall from grace and his final triumphant return to high office. It shows the hollowness and shabbiness behind the glittering facade of state power and the motives that drive people to go into politics - in France at least. But as the main character has no other aim than simply to wield authority over others and is perfectly willing to contradict all his previous declarations of principle to retain this authority, the book tends to leave the reader in a depressed and cynical state, and this may be why its sales were among the lowest of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle. One might expect the main character, as the eldest son of the legitimate Rougon line, to have something more to offer, but the dryness of the subject chosen is too much for even Zola to overcome. Worth reading as a key part of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, but as a novel in its own right ..... Zola has much better things to offer.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read This After The Fortune of the Rougons, August 18, 2009

By 

Liam Wilshire (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: His Excellency (Rougon-Macquart) (Paperback)

HIS EXCELLENCY may be the sixth of the series in order of composition, but Zola made it clear that it was meant to be read as the second of the series. (See my comments on the Mondial edition of FORTUNE for the preferred order.)

Just as THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS established Zola's style of backtracking and dovetailing events that occur within the same time frame, it can be seen as a model for the whole series. HIS EXCELLENCY proceeds in a straight chronological line, but in subsequent novels we will backtrack to this same period and cover it from different perspectives.

The most distinguished thing about HIS EXCELLENCY is the nuance with which Zola develops the antagonistic ambitions of Eugène Rougon and Clorinde. The first chapter very cleverly introduces Clorinde first, but builds up the later entrance of Rougon, establishing the ambiguity over who is the protagonist and who the antagonist.

With the exception of these two characters, the subsidiary characters are barely types, but if we fault Zola for this, then we have also to include Dickens and Balzac. It doesn't matter. It is a face-off between two strong characters, and that is enough.

The style of the novel is that of long set pieces in which the fickleness of Rougon's friends help shape his fall/rise/fall from fortune. We also get a brief glimpse into the court of Louis-Napoleon--but the real action is in the nepotism and favoritism that went on at lower levels in the Second Empire.

The Mondial editions sure have pretty covers--too bad they're full of typos. Worse, Vizitelly's translation frequently completely omits passages considered too racy for his Victorian readership. Some of his mistranslations are truly bonehead, to wit, the French word for "inevitably" is translated "as was fatal," making no sense whatever. Another glaring example is the translation of the French word for "perverse" as "perverted," with unintentionally hilarious meaning.

Be that as it may, this is the translation we have. Overall, Vizitelly has a good grasp of Zola's strengths and, liberties aside, he has rendered a very good novel into an acceptable translation.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Behind the scenes of Second Empire politics, May 3, 2005

By 

Karl Janssen (Olathe, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: His Excellency (Hardcover)

This is the sixth novel in Zola's twenty-novel Rougon-Macquart cycle. Compared to the other novels in the series, this one falls in the middle of the pack in terms of quality. Eugene Rougon is a powerful minister in Napoleon III's government. Through his own vanity and ambition, and some political maneuvering on the part of his rivals, he is beginning to fall into disfavor with the Emperor and with the public. Rougon won't go down without a fight, however, and this book chronicles his battle to stay on top. At the same time, Rougon becomes romantically obsessed with a beautiful Italian aristocrat who has hidden political motivations of her own. This book offers a fascinating look into the complex inner workings of the government of France's Second Empire. Napoleon III himself is a supporting character in the book. This novel is similar to Zola's work Money (L'Argent) in that it offers us a very well-drawn, strong and ambitious central character with complicated emotional depth, situated in a position of power amidst the historical events of his era. To read this book it helps to have a general knowledge of French history and politics of the time, at least the various wars that were taking place during the Second Empire. The characters make reference to a lot of events, and it can be a difficult read if you don't know the facts behind the story. Those who enjoy Zola's other Rougon-Macquart novels will like this book, as will anyone interested in French history.